Image: Milwaukee Opera Theatre
'Rusalka' by Danceworks and Milwaukee Opera Theatre
Water is on the minds of people around the world as droughts continue here, historic floods occur there, and the sea slowly rises everywhere. Although Milwaukee has been relatively unscathed, concern over water is being addressed here in the performing arts. The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra is wrapping up its “Water Festival” concert series, and next week Danceworks Performance MKE and Milwaukee Opera Theatre present Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka, an opera about a water nymph who comes to bad ends at the hands of humankind.
With a cast of 16 in a hall seating 70, it will probably be, as MOT’s Artistic Director Jill Anna Ponasik quips, the smallest production of Rusalka in the smallest space ever attempted. The opera is beloved in the composer’s Czech homeland but seldom performed in the U.S. “Renee Fleming was a famous Rusalka at the Met,” Ponasik continues. “It’s a very big opera done as written, with a big orchestra, a big cast and in a language not usually mastered by opera singers during their education.”
As usual, MOT approaches the production with imagination, a sense of scale and a sensibility that looks for ways to recontextualize without dumbing down. Dvořák’s three-hour opera has been trimmed to one hour by eliminating long orchestral passages and a few minor characters. Piano and harp stand in place of a full orchestra. The original stage directions for the Moon—hiding its face behind clouds during sad scenes—has been embodied as a person, played by Jason Powell, in a white jumpsuit with a nametag reading: MOON. “He’s telling the audience—in English—what you’re about to hear or what you’ve just heard,” Ponasik explains. The libretto will be sung in the original Czech to Dvořák’s gorgeous melodies.
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Danceworks’ Christal Wagner choreographed eight dancers for scenes in motion that are integral to the way the production enacts the story. As Ponasik relates, there will be three worlds onstage: the water world of freedom and joy; the human world she describes as “a drunken frat dance party”; and the bridge between those worlds occupied by the sinister sorceress Jezibaba. Imagine barefooted nymphs in the water world, black taffeta swirling around Jezibaba and tight dresses and high heels among the humans. The eight dancers are continually transforming into other characters across those worlds.
Rusalka is based on a Czech fairy tale, but as Ponasik says, “many cultures have the same tale in some form. A nymph or mermaid falls in love with a human, sacrifices something of herself and it ends badly. It’s always a mistake to consult the sorceress!”
The meta-aspect of the Danceworks-MOT production of Rusalka reflects on the harm civilization is inflicting on the natural world. “If there’s a moral to the story,” Ponasik says, “it’s that humans ruin everything.”
Rusalka will be performed February 9-12 at Danceworks Studio Theatre, 1661 N. Water St. For tickets and more information, visit danceworksmke.org.
